Chris Crawford on Game Design

The Unrevenged Review

Shortly after I released my educational game, Balance of the Planet, an important magazine reviewed it. The review was written by the senior editor himself, and it was most unflattering. It was obvious from the details he provided that the chap had given the program the most cursory of reviews. He thought it was a HyperCard stack when it was a standalone program; he complained about a lack of documentation when in fact the example he provided was handled in complete detail in the most obvious place in the manual; and so on. I was understandably upset with this grossly unfair review and wrote a letter to him decisively refuting his every complaint. He called me up to discuss the letter, and seemed apologetic. “Look,” he said, ...